How to Teach your Dog to Close a Drawer

One of my favorite behaviors to teach a dog and their owner is “Touch.” The most basic form of Touch is where we ask a dog to put their nose to the palm of our hand. This is called nose targeting.

What’s great about Touch is that it is a really easy behavior to teach your dog, so it can be a great win for first timers! This behavior can also lead to a lot of cool tricks down the road too.

How To Teach the Touch Behavior

Supplies

A hungry dog

Yummy treats

Clicker or a Marker word

Your Hand

First, you’ll want to get your dog acquainted with a clicker or a marker word. The definition of clicker training that Karen Pyror gives us is:

“Desirable behavior is usually marked by using a “clicker,” a mechanical device that makes a short, distinct “click” sound which tells the animal exactly when they’re doing the right thing. This clear form of communication, combined with positive reinforcement, is an effective, safe, and humane way to teach any animal any behavior that it is physically and mentally capable of doing.”

If you don’t have a clicker yet, that’s ok, you can start with a marker word like “yes” or “good.” The benefits of using the clicker over your voice is that our voice is slower than the clicker sound, so it may mean we aren’t as accurate with timing.

To start, you’ll need to teach your dog that the clicker sound or marker word has value. Go ahead and click or mark, then treat. Do that a couple times and you’ll find your dog looking at you after the clicker, expecting a treat!

Great! So now your dog knows that the clicker/marker word gets them rewards! This way when you start teaching new behaviors, you can click them for the exact behavior you desire and they’ll know they get a reward for it, so they will want to try that behavior again!

The next step is to show your dog the palm of your hand. They think, what is my human doing and go to check it out. If their nose touches your hand, click or mark the exact moment that happens and follow with a treat. Stick your hand out again, if they touch it again, click and treat. You can repeat this until you see that they are deliberately touching your hand.

But what if they aren’t interested? Set them up for success! Some things you can try are: make sure your hand isn’t too far away from their nose, maybe you can rub your hands with a treat or a little peanut butter to get their interest, and move your hand around or wiggle your fingers. Click or mark any sort of interest towards your hand. Even if they don’t touch it, you can still reward them for getting closer!

Once, they are booping their nose into your hand, go ahead and test them a little. Can you hold your hand up higher or lower? Can they touch your hand through your legs or when your hand is on the move? If they are passing your tests, that’s awesome! Let’s add a cue to it now. You only want to add a cue once you are 99% sure they are going to put their nose to your palm when you offer it. Say the word you choose right before they touch and click and treat when they complete the behavior. Repeat until they are responding to the cue. A couple cue options can be, well, whatever you want! Touch is a common choice, but bump, push, boop, or banana could work just fine too!

Expanding Touch

That was pretty easy right? And you might be thinking, why does my dog need this behavior?! Well, touch has a lot of cool applications:

A reliable recall

If you have a dog that really gives you an excited touch, try asking for a touch at longer distances. You can work up to them coming to you from far away, just to touch your hand. Some dogs love completing a task!

Kisses

Once my dog new touch, I next smeared some peanut butter on my hand for him to lick. I clicked and treated when he started licking. I use this behavior to redirect him if he’s getting too rough playing with his mouth.

Stand

You can teach a stand from a sit or a down by offering your hand. They’ll have to get up and touch your hand and in the process, you can click and treat once they are in the stand position.

Positioning

Sometimes we need are dogs to move to certain spots and by asking for a touch, you can get them to certain locations without handling them. A great example is at the vet and getting them on too the scale. Different surfaces under their feet can feel a little strange, including them metal scale, so giving them the job of touching can help make positioning a little smoother.

Keeping them close and heel work

If you’ve got a dog that is a little nervous in certain situations, you are moving through a potentially challenging situation, or you want to work on heel work, ask them for quick, consecutive hand touches. This will keep their focus on your hand and you, rather than whatever else is going on. It will also keep them right by your side.

Closing doors and drawers

This one is my favorite! You can teach your dog to touch their nose to something other than your by transferring the behavior. One way to do this is to hold another object in your hand (ex. post it note, small lid, wooden spoon, etc.). Ask for a touch and click and treat for when their nose touches the object. Slowly, you can move that object further from your hand and still ask for a touch to that object.

Now you’re ready to place that object on something else, like a cabinet door. When they touch it, click and treat! If they are doing that consistently, try phasing the object out, asking for a touch on the cabinet door! You’ll soon have a dog that will close the drawers and doors after you!

Love this!! Although my farm dog hardly wants to come inside this house (even when I need her to!) but we too used the clicker method then word commands after when we first got her as a puppy so many years ago… this will come in helpful when we are ready to get another puppy this spring! 🙂

I taught my dog to Eskimo kiss my nose… so just nose to nose, I bet your pup could do that! As for the treats, does he really like something like a toy or pets? You could give that in exchange for a touch!

We haven’t worked with a clicker. I love that more people are advocating positive reinforcement training – it should be the ONLY way. This is a fun post. I’ll definitely try teaching Henry to close drawers. Probably better than the door – he might shut Goose (cat) in somewhere!

Haha we definitely have to think about ulterior motives. That’s why I don’t teach Mo to open doors (I’m thinking the fridge). Positive reinforcement should be the only way! There science and proven fact that it works better than the other stuff!

What a good post to teach a pup what could be a valuable skill. Clicker training for dogs has a lot of potential doesn’t it?

I have often wondered if I could clicker train our cats but as we have 8 they would ALL come running for a treat and I might be covered in cats even more than I am now…… Hmmm I need to think about this one…..

Great post and I although Layla knows the basics like recall, I have not taught any others to her and I think if I tried today with a clicker she would freak, as strange noises have suddenly started scaring her, my vet says it comes with age. BUT if I ever get another pup this will be on the list

Excellent article! Keeping a dog working in a fun way goes a long way toward building a close bond and a confident dog. Not enough people challenge their dogs and that’s a recipe for problems. I love the step by step guide and how you explain about setting them up for success. I have to say my favorite part is the video with your dog bumping the camera. I taught my dog to “Touch” my leg and she did it her entire life. Makes me smile now just thinking about it. 🙂

How cool! I’ve never owned a dog, let alone trying to train one. But I could appreciate the way you broke down the target behaviour so the dog can learn it by degrees. This makes perfect sense, as it’s the way we would teach a person too.

Wow, I’d like to teach my next young dog the touch command. This is so cool! Unfortunately, Buffy is almost blind and bumps into a lot of stuff. I’ll keep these training tips in mind when I get a springer pup.

I taught Gusto to touch a target pole. By placing the pole at a distance, I can teach Gusto to do distance work for obedience. We have been working with a clicker too. I love positive dog training methods. They make for a happy dog 🙂

They absolutely do! I think the bond between human and dog is stronger with positive training. Makes navigating this crazy life a lot easier! So cool that you are doing distance work. That can be tough!